Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom: Being the Book and Being the Change. Language and Literacy Series

Wilhelm, Jeffrey D.; Novak, Bruce

Teachers College Press

This powerful book lays out an inspiring new vision for the teaching of English, building on themes central to Wilhelm's influential "You Gotta BE The Book." With this new work, Wilhelm and Novak challenge business as usual in the language arts. They call for nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of the aims and methods of the English classroom, showing what English can do for democratic life, inside and outside of classrooms. With moving portraits of teachers and students, as well as practical strategies and advice, they provide a roadmap to educational transformation far beyond the field of English that will be of interest to a wide audience of teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers, and educational leaders. Essential questions explored by "Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom" include: (1) Why is what English teachers do so often underestimated?; (2) How can we teach literature in a way that fully taps into its transformative power?; and (3) How can we artfully teach "all" subjects, at all levels, for personal wisdom, democratic community, and social and ecological justice? Following a foreword by Sheridan Blau, the book is divided into three parts: (1) What is "English?"; (2) The Way Life Teaches: Revisiting the Three Dimensions of Aesthetic, Transactional Responsiveness; and (3) Reading "Beyond" the Book: Moving from a Transactional Worldview to a Transactional World. (Includes notes, references, and an index.)